


Stay

by adoxyinherear



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: AU, Cassian Andor - Freeform, F/M, Fix-It, Jyn Erso - Freeform, Rebelcaptain - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 06:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9708173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adoxyinherear/pseuds/adoxyinherear
Summary: When Saw Guerrera abandons her, Jyn finds the rebellion - and then Cassian finds her.AU, Jyn serves with a small intelligence outfit headed by Cassian. There's loaded silences and slow burn and planet hopping. Cassian also rips off an Archimedes quote because, it was too good and I couldn't help myself.





	

She’d learned the name Saw Guerrera could open doors as easily as close them.

With the rebellion, it was the latter. But they hadn’t anticipated Jyn jamming her proverbial heel in before they shut the door in her face.

Six months proving she could be trusted. Six more assuring rebel brass she hadn’t absorbed all of Guerrera’s extremist tendencies – some, certainly, and on more than one occasion her mouth had gotten her into trouble. Wasn’t that what blasters were for, though? A ready solution for a situation that had gotten entirely out of hand. Jyn had a semi-regular argument with her superior officer that it didn’t matter much whose fault it was, only who came out on top.

Jyn had always lost that argument, until Eava Stryk ran afoul of a spice dealer on Nar Shaddaa and took a knife to the gut. Then Jyn had won by default.

She didn’t meet her new captain, not right away. Jyn’s specialty was infiltration and assimilation – when her temper didn’t get the better of her. She could fit in, fade away, and quietly undermine the security of almost anyone. So when she learned of the death of the woman she’d been taking orders from for more than a year, she’d mourned in silence, under an assumed name, because her current cover was too good to be blown. It wasn’t glamorous work, being a janitorial assistant in a bacta lab on Duro, but it did allow her to monitor quantities and shipments – and, hopefully soon, disrupt a major supplier to the Empire.

Two weeks after the coded message detailing Stryk’s death, Jyn ended her shift in a cantina with two Corellian nectars: one to drink, and one to stare at, imagining the older woman’s crooked smile, the scar that rendered every expression just a little sinister.

“Hallik? Liana Hallik?”

The voice was light, musical, but Jyn didn’t bother looking up. Liana Hallik was as wary of strangers as Jyn Erso.

“Who wants to know?” Jyn drawled, turning her empty glass in its own dew. Liana Hallik was also just as surly as Jyn Erso after only one drink.

Someone slid in close beside her at the bar, muttering, “give me a lever long enough and a  _fulcrum_  on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

Now Jyn looked up.

He was younger than she’d expected, though it didn’t surprise her. In the rebellion, you were either young enough that you hadn’t been captured and killed yet, or so old you’d learned everything there was to know about never getting caught. His dark hair and beard were neatly trimmed, his clothes plain and serviceable. It was his eyes that transfixed Jyn, though: deep, intelligent, kind.

She nodded, and he didn’t smile.

“Can we talk here?”

Smirking, Jyn pushed him the second Corellian nectar. “Only if you drink.”

\---

Captain Cassian Andor had listened while she updated him on the situation at the bacta lab, all in the code she’d worked out with Stryk. He’d clearly been briefed on her every move over the course of the last few weeks, and didn’t wait for her recommendations before giving the order to accelerate her mission.

“I have reason to believe they’re prototyping a new field kit. Faster-acting, and more stable under extreme conditions. If I stay on another month, I’ll be able – ”

“I need you on Dantooine in ten days.”

He’d countered her every argument, been completely unwilling to negotiate, and provided her with no additional intel to speed up her sabotage of the Empire’s next bulk shipment of bacta. In other words, he was cut from the very same cloth as Stryk.

Jyn thought she was going to like working for him.

\---

Dantooine was the greenest planet Jyn had been on since Lah’Mu. She heard her mother’s dying scream in the bird song, smelled the discharge of the Deathtrooper’s weapons on the wind. She was glad the not-so-subtle psych evaluations of her first few months in the rebellion were behind her.

Andor had assembled a small team to monitor the movements of an arms dealer who made a regular retreat of Dantooine with his wife and three children. The rebellion wasn’t sure of his sympathies, but if he could be persuaded to cut them in, it would go a long way toward supplying the resistance.

And if they couldn’t, well.

So it was watch and wait and see for now. Jyn sought work in the docking bay, the others – Raynar, Cid, and Tivik – in various other high-traffic  areas in the bustling settlement where the arms dealer took his holiday.

Andor was the only one who stayed completely off the grid.

After delivering her third day’s report – nothing of note coming through or going out, and no sign of any Imperial agents – Jyn asked him why.

“I don’t need to be seen to do my job,” he answered curtly, retrieving a pouch of supplements from his pack and counting out an evening’s ration. He downed them quickly with a neat glug of water from his canteen.

“You could eat real food, you know,” Jyn observed. “Tivik’s got a hot plate.”

Andor shrugged. “This is easier.”

Jyn studied him, the sharp slope of his nose, the dark-lashed eyes steady as he worked now to meticulously disassemble, clean, and reassemble his blaster rifle. Cassian caught her looking and for a moment his hands stilled, eyes uneasy with some thought she couldn’t read. Embarrassed, she looked down into the cup of caf she clutched between two gloved hands, fingers pale as pearls against the rough vessel. She’d watched the seller grind the beans by hand, and the cane, too. Hard, careful work for such a small indulgence.

“What’s easy isn’t always what’s best,” she continued after a moment, draining the cup before rising and leaving Andor to his rifle.

The next morning she’d woken to scrambled eggs.

\---

She’d tried to keep a low profile, she really had. But when one of the dock workers had put his hands on her, Jyn had broken his nose.

And his collarbone.

Cassian was furious – she’d started thinking of him as Cassian, stopped fighting thinking of him as Cassian –  disappearing from the flat the five rebels were squatting in and not returning for hours. She’d already come up with a plan, several plans, for either re-ingratiating herself at the docking bay or finding another cover at the local hospital. They’d learned the arms dealer’s wife was expecting another child within weeks, and it was a vulnerable angle that Jyn was convinced they ought to work, if they could.

But Cassian wasn’t interested in hearing her plans.

“It’s taken care of.”

“What do you mean?” Jyn searched his face, getting close enough that it would be difficult to turn away. 

“I mean there’s an Imperial agent who’ll be arriving tomorrow to negotiate for an exclusive contract for thermal detonators, and you’ll be there to ID them,” Cassian said smoothly, the only hint at what was going on in his head the way he fussed at his collar, rubbing his neck.

“I could’ve handled it,” Jyn insisted, the edges of her temper fraying, made worse by Cassian’s pointed attempts to ignore her and begin repacking his kit, instead. He’d turned his back on her, and when she spoke again, her words felt shrill and childish. “I didn’t need your help.”

At this Cassian stopped, hands falling to his sides. He turned slightly, looking over one shoulder and meeting her eyes, his own hooded.

“We all need help, Liana. That’s why we do what we do.”

“It’s Jyn,” she said hurriedly, a twist of something sweet and hot and dangerous in her gut when his eyes met hers. “Nobody’s listening. You can call me Jyn.”

Cassian bent back over his work, but she could hear his smile when next he spoke.

“Somebody’s always listening. Isn’t that right, Tivik?”

“What’s that?” The jumpy operative peered around a corner, and Jyn only just maintained her composure.

“See? Always listening,” Cassian continued, chuckling softly.

\---

“He’s not alone,” Jyn hissed into her comm, tucked between two shipping crates. “There’s at least a squad of Stormtroopers with him. Maybe more on the ship.”

It was a long minute before Cassian answered.

“Learn how many are on the ship. I’m going to need you to cover for Cid while she slices the cargo door on their transport.”

Jyn didn’t need him to elaborate. If the Imperials took on explosives and their cargo bay depressurized on their ascent through Dantooine’s atmosphere, the transport would explode, robbing the Empire of an essential shipment and killing everyone onboard.

She cut the transmission, holding her breath while the Stormtroopers marched by.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

\---

All around her was the sizzle of blaster bolts striking flesh, armor, and stone, the screams of those caught in the cross fire. Jyn rolled for cover behind a cart bound for the farmer’s market – the caf seller’s cart, the one she’d been frequenting since their arrival. She didn’t see him anywhere. She hoped, fleetingly, that he hadn’t been killed.

Jyn popped a few shots off with a quick look, more as a distraction than anything else, and felt her heart stammer out a rhythm akin to her blaster fire. And then it threatened to stop altogether when the Stormtrooper who was advancing on her position suddenly collapsed in the street. Her eyes shot up, scanning the rooftops, but she didn’t see anyone.

Still, she knew Cassian was up there.

Cid darted out from where she’d been crouched in an alley and the pair ran ahead, ducking into an open door when they were fired on again, cutting through the modest home to a back garden where a frightened mother huddled with her two small children. Jyn’s lips flattened in apology as they vaulted over the woman’s fence, making for the smuggler’s hangar where their transport was berthed.

Raynar had the engines fired up, and the hum of freedom was just about the best sound Jyn had ever heard. She launched herself up the on ramp, Cid right after her, nearly bowling Tivik over in her haste to be on board. But Jyn hesitated. They had only a few minutes before the Imperials found them and she waited on the ramp, taking aim in case it wasn’t Cassian who burst through the door.

Another clatter of blaster fire caused Jyn’s heart to stutter, and her grip on her blaster tightened when a figure came crashing through the debris at the entrance to the hangar. Cassian stopped only long enough to fire several precise shots over his shoulder before he was running up the ramp, looping an arm around Jyn’s waist and lifting her bodily into the transport as the door closed on the pair.

He let her go immediately, but was close enough that for an instant she could smell the faint, earthy scent that clung to his skin and clothes, weapon grease, cheap, military-issued soap.

“Tell me it was worth getting shot at,” he said, looking down at her, lips pressed to a thin, unreadable line.

Jyn held his eyes, but it was Cid who piped in.

“My work won’t show up in a routine diagnostic. They’ll never make it into orbit.”

 _Worth it_ , Jyn thought, still feeling the hot press of his hand through her clothes.

\---

Jyn had always loved the light and the absolute quiet of traveling in hyperspace. When she’d gone up to ask Raynar if she could join her in the cockpit where the view was best, Jyn had been surprised to find Cassian there, instead.

“Raynar’s sleeping.” Cassian’s explanation was accompanied by the captain’s shutting off of the datapad he was reviewing. “I gave everyone six hours of rest. Including you.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Jyn offered, taking the co-pilot’s chair and drawing her knees up. After a moment, Cassian’s expression shifted from preparing an argument to resignation.

“You’ll regret it in the morning,” he cautioned, glancing at the datapad but not turning it on again.

“Orders?” Jyn asked, indicating the datapad. She knew they were headed to another planet in the outer rim, but not which one. Cassian shook his head.

“A letter.”

Brows quirked, Jyn leaned back, studying him.

“From your mother? Or your lover?”

Cassian shot her a look, both hands gripping the datapad now, feet planted on the floor as he sat up.

“Neither.”

He had to edge between them to leave the cockpit, and on an impulse, Jyn caught his wrist.

“I’ll go. I’m not a pilot.”

 When she stood they both occupied the narrow space between the pilot and co-pilot’s seats. Even though she’d let go of his wrist they were still close enough to touch. Slowly, tentatively, his fingers arched, brushing against her bare forearm.  She felt a charge pass between them, electrifying her blood and limbs and bones. Jyn looked up at him through her lashes, not tilting her face toward his, not daring. Cassian’s features spoke volumes of restraint, dark eyes catching the light of the console and swallowing it up.

“Stay,” he murmured after a moment, stepping back into the pilot’s seat. Jyn thought her legs might give way and she’d tumble into the co-pilot’s seat – or his lap – but she sat down heavily, without incident.

Their silence stretched companionably until she fell asleep with the glow of hyperspace illuminating her features, sure she hadn’t dreamed the touch of Cassian’s hand brushing her hair away from her face.

\---

They arrived on Nar Shaddaa to finish the mission that Jyn’s previous commanding officer hadn’t been able to.

Jyn was not handling it well.

Rebel Alliance High Command had reason to believe that there were bounty hunters on the Imperial payroll posing as spice smugglers. Doing business with the Hutts was already dangerous enough – introducing more reasons to distrust any hard-won agreements was less than ideal.

Raynar had contacts from her time on Nar Shaddaa before the war, and where Raynar went so went Cid. Tivik found a gambling den and disappeared immediately, despite Jyn’s protests.

“He’ll return in the morning with names and coordinates,” Cassian insisted. “Trust me.”

They paid up front for several rooms in a drab but clean hostel run by a Twi’lek who didn’t ask too many questions. Cassian still insisted they book separately, and staggered their arrival.

So, Jyn ended up sprawled alone on the bed she’d end up sharing with Raynar and Cid, if they came back, turning her crystal necklace in the air above her head and thinking about Eava Stryk. She knew people died in her line of work. She expected them to. But when everyone who’d ever gotten close to her had died, or abandoned her, Jyn couldn’t help but wonder if she’d always be left behind.

The buzzing of her comm started her out of her gloom. It was Cassian, an uncertain crackle in his voice.

“Tivik’s back.”

“Should I come over there?”

There was a long pause before Cassian replied, his words punctuated by a snort of laughter. Female laughter.

“No. I’m coming there.”

She let him in a few minutes later, a question in her eyes. Cassian’s expression was surprisingly sheepish.

“I thought you said he’d be back in the morning. With information,” Jyn prompted, but Cassian avoided her eyes, taking in the small room, her discarded boots, her pistol in easy reach of the bed.

“He did. He just hasn’t extracted it yet.”

Jyn nodded, unable to keep from grinning. She was impressed – she hadn’t expected it from Tivik, but a few drinks had a transformative power over lots of people.

“What is that?” Cassian asked, gesturing to her necklace. She hadn’t tucked it back into her shirt, a mistake she didn’t often make.

“A gift,” Jyn said hurriedly, quick to slip it underneath of her clothes. Cassian’s smile was slight, almost invisible.

“From your mother? Or your lover?”

Jyn’s jaw dropped in an ‘O’ of surprise, and then she laughed, startling herself. Personal questions rarely elicited anything other than grief and regret, but he had taken her so completely off guard. Cassian held her eyes, lips still deliciously quirked. She stepped forward on impulse, taking a light hold of his jacket’s lapels and tipping onto her toes to kiss his smile before it was gone.

If his smile slid away under the pressure of her lips, she didn’t notice. Because Cassian was kissing her back, a cautious sweetness that deepened quickly to something quite the opposite. Urgent, reckless, hungry. Jyn swayed when Cassian’s arms went around her, tight about her waist, hands hugging her hips against his. Her body warmed in response to his obvious need even as her head rallied, begging her hands to wait, her lips to reason.

But when his kisses wandered from Jyn’s mouth to her jaw, crossed hotly down her throat, all that escaped her was a moan.

She was tugging suddenly at the rough shirt tucked into his military fatigues, exploring his bare waist, his belly, soft hairs springy beneath her fingers. Cassian shrank from her unexpectedly, a light chuckle escaping him.

“That tickles,” he whispered, the moment enough to slow them both, their eyes meeting again.

It was Cassian who spoke, finally.

“I don’t want you to think I came in here for – this,” he began, his words halting. “I admire you. I never expected…”

Cassian’s unfinished thought hung between them, and Jyn imagined herself catching it, decoding it like she might a secure transmission.

“We’re at war, Cassian,” she insisted, voice harder than she meant it to be. But her eyes were soft. “Everything’s unexpected. We get wounded, or captured, or killed. If I can have something good before that happens, I want it.”

Jyn didn’t need to say the rest, admit that she wanted _him_. Cassian’s lips captured hers again, busy hands making quick work of clothes and touching reverently upon bare flesh. He was achingly gentle, guiding her to the bed with an ease that made Jyn wonder, fleetingly, how many times he’d done this before. But then he was cupping her breasts, parting her lips and legs in the same instant, and she couldn’t think of anything at all.

\---

Raynar and Cid didn’t return that night, and there wouldn’t have been room for them in the bed anyway. Cassian slept with limbs akimbo, one arm hugging Jyn close to his side. She woke to his scent, his warm skin, and lay still for as long as she dared, smiling as she listened to him breathe and dream.


End file.
